


star-crossed / stargazing

by merlypops



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys Kissing, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, set after the books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7417348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlypops/pseuds/merlypops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan’s eyes glittered in the darkness and his lips were soft against Adam’s when he closed the distance between them, gentle and yielding and warm – everything Ronan liked to pretend that he wasn’t.</p><p>
  <b>Adam loves Ronan, always. Impossibly, his feelings are returned.</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	star-crossed / stargazing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badtemperblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badtemperblue/gifts).



> This is for Ida because she was the one who told me about this beautiful series in the first place and I can honestly never thank her enough for that.
> 
> I'm almost finished reading the last Raven Cycle book and, because I am terrified to find out what happens to them, I decided to procrastinate by writing a hopefully-not-terrible oneshot instead.  
> I hope you guys will like this!
> 
> P.S. I'm sorry the title is terrible. I literally just could not think of one so... you got this. Sorry.

Adam had always been ethereal.

Back when his grandmother had still been on speaking terms with the Parrish family, she used to brush his fair skin and his dust-blond hair back, and say he looked like a little faerie with his elfin features. Naturally, Robert Parrish had had some choice words to say about that. (But unnaturally, Adam hadn’t cared.)

The sentiment had stuck with Adam, settling deep in his bones – the _rightness_ of the statement… how real the meaning felt.

Adam was **different**. Otherworldly.

Bargaining himself to Cabeswater over a decade later had only confirmed that. Adam was something else, _something more_.

Adam saw it reflected back at him in Ronan Lynch.

The magic of it twisted in the smaller boy’s fiery blue eyes, the power tingling in his fingertips when Adam pressed them against his lips. Ronan had always been something else too, as powerful as his father and twice as delicate, not that he would _ever_ admit that.

He didn’t even tell Adam who he spoke to more honestly than almost anyone else in the world. Adam just saw it in Ronan’s eyes sometimes; when the black hooks of his tattoo looked like they were tearing nightmarishly into his skin… when Ronan folded himself up shakily into Adam’s arms to make himself small.

It was strange to think of Ronan as small. He had a raven on his shoulder and he could create things from his dreams – like flaming swords or monsters or Cabeswater or his own _brother_ – and his presence could fill any room, always. Ronan could make Adam feel like god or he could make him feel like a speck of dirt if he wanted to, but Ronan was still small.

Adam was a whole head and a half taller than Ronan. He was stronger because he _had_ to be.

Gansey had been right that night in the Barns, as he so often was. Ronan Lynch _was_ small. He was delicate and fragile and _fracturing_ but he was also far too stubborn to ask for help… stubborn enough to paint a colossal shadow from his nightmares and hide behind it when he had to be strong… only Adam knew better.

Adam knew Ronan when he was at his weakest, when he was falling apart in the taller boy’s arms with soft cries and even softer eyes. They shone like molten lava almost, like fireflies or the pretty lights he’d taken from his dreams. They stripped the harshness from his sharp face and made him young again… made him Ronan _before_ and not after so much had been taken from him. Adam was glad Ronan trusted him enough to show him this raw part of himself. He was glad they had survived.

“This is no bed of fucking roses, Parrish,” Ronan said conversationally, shaved head cushioned on his arm as they lay close, side by side. They were sprawled out on the roof of Adam’s dented and lovingly named tri-coloured shitmobile, courtesy of Ronan. (The name, not the car.)

“The Hondayota is not the nicest place to stargaze on,” Adam allowed, smirking slightly when Ronan pulled a disgusted face at Adam’s (incredibly accurate) description of what they were doing. (Ronan had many names for Adam’s car. He was a very imaginative sort of person… not that this should have surprised Adam in any way – he had seen Ronan’s dream things after all… and shared his bed.)

A cool breeze picked up and Ronan’s face screwed up sulkily as he snuggled closer, not that he would have used the word ‘snuggled’ probably. Adam didn’t care though because Ronan was bundled up in a thick burgundy jumper and his body was warm as he wrapped his arms around the taller boy’s waist, and _goddamnit_ , this counted as snuggling.

“Cold,” Ronan murmured, thin lips brushing the underside of Adam’s jaw as the taller boy lay still beneath him. His hands were resting comfortingly on Ronan’s waist and the dents they were forcing into the car’s roof were probably unrepairable but Adam didn’t really mind in that moment.

It was almost autumn and he could smell a bonfire on the breeze, could hear the distant croaking of Chainsaw and the shriek of Ronan’s albino night terror as they whirled in the dark sky overhead, playing together.

The stars were out and twinkling, and Adam felt his love for Ronan more keenly in that moment than he ever had before. He felt it in the gentle rise and fall of Ronan’s chest, in the contented hum that escaped the younger boy when Adam pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. It felt as easy as breathing.

“Do you think we look badass on top of this car?” Ronan mumbled before he pulled another face – Adam could feel it when Ronan’s lips twisted against his collarbone – and answered himself: “Of course we don’t. We’re lying on the shitmobile.”

“Rude,” Adam said, flicking Ronan gently on the nose with his fingertip. “We probably look like the loveable star-crossed protagonists of some terrible teen romance movie.”

Ronan snorted but he didn’t speak for a long moment and Adam worried his full bottom lip between his teeth, gazing straight up at the stars as he felt Ronan struggling for words against him.

“Lynch?” Adam asked softly but the word tasted wrong. “ _Ronan_.” There. Better. “What is it?”

The silence that grew then was not really silence at all. Adam could hear the wind through the trees, the hum of cicadas, the cacophony of Chainsaw screeching and the night terror’s wings _thump-thump-thumping_ as they raced together.

“Star-crossed,” Ronan echoed flatly, his voice cold enough that Adam knew he’d actually managed to upset him. _Don’t break him, Parrish. – I’m not an idiot, Gansey._ Damnit. “Star-crossed means destined by fate to be unhappy. Is that what you t-think of us?”

There was a tiny wobble in Ronan’s voice, almost unnoticeable but Adam felt it running through him like an earthquake. Adam cradled the back of Ronan’s head gently in his palm and he was deeply relieved when the smaller boy didn’t pull away.

“I was only joking, Ronan.” Adam’s voice was little more than a murmur. “You know that, right? This isn’t some game to me.”

“Star-crossed –” Ronan repeated like Adam hadn’t even spoken. “– means destined to be unhappy. Are _you_ unhappy, Parrish?” Adam flinched at the surname… at the worry warring with forced numbness on Ronan’s face. Adam didn’t know why he was reacting like this. He just knew he needed to fix things before Ronan rolled out of his arms and refused to come back.

“Of course I –” Adam faltered when Ronan raised one dark eyebrow silently. Adam swallowed, forcing himself to tell the truth because – no matter what – Ronan Lynch was always honest.

“I’m not _un_ happy,” Adam said hesitantly, letting out a sigh when Ronan pushed himself away, curling up into a sitting position. Adam sat beside him, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arm around them. When Adam curled his fingers cautiously around Ronan’s where they rested on the roof of the car, relief surged through him when the smaller boy returned the gesture hesitantly.

“But you’re not happy either,” Ronan said, looking vaguely pissed off when Adam’s lips quirked up. Ronan hated being confused, almost as much as he hated talking about feelings. This was a strange evening all round.

“True,” Adam said honestly. “But being with you _makes_ me happy. I get happier all the time. Does… does that make sense?”

Ronan’s lips twitched unconsciously.

“You’re talking shit again, Parrish,” he muttered but Adam thought maybe Ronan knew more than he was letting on.

“I thought you never told lies,” the taller boy said, making Ronan smile unwillingly into Adam’s broad shoulder.

“And I thought you _didn’t_ like it up the –”

“Damnit, Ronan!” Adam shook his head fondly, even as his cheeks flamed in the darkness. He hoped Ronan couldn’t tell but something in the smaller boy’s face told him that he could.

Ronan’s eyes glittered in the darkness and his lips were soft against Adam’s when he closed the distance between them, gentle and yielding and warm – everything Ronan liked to pretend that he wasn’t.

He settled down in Adam’s lap purposefully roughly, smirking when Adam huffed out a breath, even as the taller boy’s arms moved to wind gently around Ronan’s waist. Fireflies glowed in the air nearby and the gentle whisper of the wind through the trees surrounded them like the arms of an old friend.

“You’re magic,” Adam mumbled into Ronan’s shoulder and he meant it in the simplest way it could be said. Not arcane or sorcerer or Greywaren. Just Ronan, which was more than enough.

“You didn’t used to believe in magic,” Ronan said and Adam hummed under his breath as his hands slipped beneath the smaller boy’s t-shirt. Ronan hissed and bit Adam’s lip hard when he felt the taller boy’s cold hands but it just made Adam smile. Ronan was a jigsaw puzzle and, now that Adam had all of the pieces, it was easy to read him.

“I didn’t,” Adam agreed, flinching when Ronan’s hands wormed their way under Adam’s jumper too, pinching idly at the skin covering his ribs and tickling lightly. Adam grimaced but didn’t pull away since he supposed he deserved that.

“Tell me when,” Ronan commanded and Adam knew what he meant.

“Not when I was very little,” he said. “Magic didn’t matter in the trailer park. Not when my… my _p-parents_ were trying to scrape together enough money to survive. Why would I have believed? Magic didn’t put food on the table. It didn’t stop me from getting _h-hit_ –”

Adam choked, unable to quite finish the sentence but it didn’t seem to matter. Ronan was smoothing his hands gently down Adam’s sides now, his knuckles sore from boxing and fighting in dreams, his fingertips soft with Adam’s kisses.

“But it did stop it,” Ronan said pointedly and it took the taller boy a moment to realise what Ronan was referring to. “The thorn? That night before the court date?” Ronan shook his head with mock irritation but his eyes were warm and serious again. “You wouldn’t remember anything if you didn’t tell me, Parrish.”

“You try having a whole damn dream forest jumbled in your head with you,” Adam protested weakly but he felt comforted now, remembering the scent of Cabeswater’s leaves and earth and petrichor, all mingling together to create something beautiful and fragile and _holy_ … something alive and thriving. Something that would never stay unmade for long.

“I can smell Cabeswater,” Ronan said, his eyes fluttering shut of their own accord, and Adam knew he was thinking of Aurora Lynch then; of the Orphan Girl and the rose glade and the Latin with the poor-grammar etched onto the rocks.

_I will be your hands. I will be your eyes._

Adam could feel the ley line if he thought about it, mirroring the thump of his heart as the energy pulsed through Cabeswater, echoing like someone else’s heartbeat… perfectly in time with Ronan’s pulse because he was the one who had dreamt it.

Adam liked that his heart beat at the same time as Ronan’s.

He loved the magic of it.

“ _Te amo_ ,” Adam said before he could second-guess himself, heart pounding at the newness of the words as his shaking hand found Ronan’s. Ronan forced himself to roll his eyes but a crooked smile twisted his lips all the same and the lingering kiss he pressed to Adam’s mouth stole their breath away.

Ronan ducked his head bashfully, tucking his face safely into the familiar warmth of the taller boy’s neck.

“I love you too, you shithead,” Ronan said softly.

Adam just smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading!  
> Please let me know what you thought :) <3


End file.
